


Who You're Dancing With

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Dancing, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Love, Music, Slow Dancing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Waltzing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25141531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: The Doctor and Charley get ready to attend a ball, but things don't go exactly as planned...
Relationships: Eighth Doctor & Charley Pollard, Eighth Doctor/Charley Pollard
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Who You're Dancing With

The Doctor started talking before Charley even entered the console room.

“There you are!” He didn’t even look up, too busy examining something on the console. “I’ve landed us on Umbango, a human colony only about a thousand years into your future so we’re sure to—” He finally met her eyes and blinked in surprise, his gaze sweeping over her form. “—blend in…” he finished like an afterthought.

Charley looked down at her shimmering light blue dress and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle as she felt heat pricking her cheeks. The Doctor stepped away from the console, coming into full view, and Charley imagined that she copied his shocked expression from a moment earlier. “You’re wearing a tuxedo!”

He held out his arms like he hadn’t noticed, then looked back at her. “And you’re wearing a ballgown.”

Charley resumed her walk toward the console and paused a few feet away from him, somehow feeling self-conscious. “Is it…too much?” She had been rather excited at the prospect of finding something in the TARDIS wardrobe that had reminded her of fashions from home but yet seemed a little more like _her_ in some way. Though the Doctor had told her they were going to a prestigious, wealthy ball, she wasn’t sure if she had overdone it.

“No!” the Doctor exclaimed instantly. “No, not at all.” A warm smile spread over his features. “You look beautiful, Charley.”

The soft look in his eyes and the sincerity of the sentiment forced Charley to look away for fear that he’d somehow see the feelings he had evoked in her. Butterflies erupted in her stomach. Her face suddenly felt hot. She didn’t know quite what to say in response, so she crossed the distance between them and admired his new look in a black tuxedo. By the way the light was hitting it, she was fairly sure that the jacket was still velvet.

“Well look at you!” She reached up to straighten his black bowtie. “I’ve hardly ever seen you take off the old green jacket.”

“I only bring this out for very special occasions.”

“You never told me— _is_ there a reason why we’re dressing up and going to a fancy ball?”

He flashed a grin at her. “I felt I could do with some dancing. Come on!” He offered her his arm. “We’ve already landed.”

Charley took his arm and smiled as soft velvet caressed her skin. The Doctor led her out the TARDIS doors—

—and into a pitch black room.

“I’m feeling a very strong sense of déjà vu.” Charley held on tightly to the Doctor’s arm, thinking of a broken jam jar, gruesome murders, and a sentient house.

“It’s all right, Charley, we’ve just landed in one of the rooms not being used for the ball. The ballroom should be right through here.” The Doctor tugged on her arm, guiding her to a door. He pulled it open, allowing light to stream in from an empty, but very ornate, ballroom.

Sudden fear gripped Charley’s heart. The scene was almost eerie: complete silence, an instrument left near four chairs, the lights on the chandeliers still glowing…

“Where have they all gone?”

The Doctor sighed. “We’ve come a bit too late; they’ve all gone in to dinner.”

“Oh.” The sinister aura instantly faded. “Back to the TARDIS then?”

“Now hold on a minute,” he said, chiding her with a look. “We can still dance perfectly well without anyone else.”

“But there’s no music.” Charley once again glanced just to the right of the door where the musicians had sat and wondered why there was only one instrument left. It looked almost exactly like a cello, but less classical and more…sleek, somehow.

“Well then it’s a good thing that I know ‘The Blue Danube’ by heart.” He slipped his arm from her grasp and faced her, bowing as he held out his hand. “Miss Charlotte Pollard, may I have this dance?”

Charley took his hand and smiled, all of her misgivings vanishing in a moment. “You may, Doctor.”

The Doctor straightened up and raised their joined hands in the air. He delicately held her waist as Charley grasped his shoulder. He began humming the waltz and Charley couldn’t help but giggle at the way he instantly got carried away with making it sound as much like an orchestra as he possibly could.

She also couldn’t help but notice after only a minute or so that the Doctor was a flawless dancer. She and her sisters had been forced to have dancing lessons growing up, so she knew a thing or two about waltzing. The Doctor was, without a doubt, the best dance partner she had ever had. There was a silent communication between them that made it so easy to move in tandem until Charley found that they were dancing across the entire expanse of the ballroom.

Being so close to the Doctor, there was hardly anywhere to look but at his face. She simply watched him, examining the way his expression matched the music he hummed, the way his cold blue eyes would occasionally catch hers and a smile would tug at his lips.

Charley wasn’t sure if the ball-goers were going to come back to the ballroom after they had finished their dinner, but as she danced with the Doctor, in the back of her mind she really hoped that they wouldn’t.

* * *

Kimly Medow rushed through empty corridors as quickly as she dared in her high heels, her hands clenched into fists so she couldn’t dwell on how much they were sweating. If her fingers were slick, her hand would slip while playing. If that happened, Malax would get angry. And she didn’t need Malax to hate her any more than he already did.

“I’m so _stupid,”_ she muttered to herself for the umpteenth time. To be invited to a dinner at a ball as a musician was unheard of, and it had excited her so much that she had mingled with the crowd as soon as the dancing had ended. There was nothing wrong with that—except for the part where she was also supposed to play in the library immediately after the meal was over, which meant her instrument had to actually get there first.

She realised now why Malax had allowed her to leave the packing up to him and the two others; he had _wanted_ her to forget and publicly fail. The thought made her seethe, but before she could dwell on it further she came to the room where the instrument cases were stored. She flicked on the light and blinked at the sight of a giant blue box sitting in front of the window.

That _definitely_ hadn’t been there before. Maybe it had been brought in for some kind of entertainment later?

Shaking off her curiosity, Kimly focused on the task at hand. She opened the door to the ballroom quietly, feeling it was appropriate in the silence, but froze at the telltale sound of footsteps tapping on the ground in rhythmic time.

Kimly stepped further into the room and saw a couple dancing all by themselves in the middle of the ballroom. Though they were some distance away, Kimly thought she could hear snatches of a waltz being hummed. “The Blue Danube,” maybe?

For a moment, she was transfixed by the sight. The couple didn’t see her; they seemed to be so entirely captivated with each other that nothing else mattered. The sight warmed Kimly’s heart, pushing away all her worries and her anger. She had watched couples dancing all night, but this was the first time she felt she had really seen love.

An idea crept into her mind. She had left the dinner early, so she had a few minutes, despite what her frenzied state of mind tried to tell her. She silently picked up her cello from where it sat, leaving the amplifier it was wirelessly connected to, and went back into the room with the strange blue box. She sat in a chair, pressed the button on the cello that would connect it to the amp, closed her eyes…and began to play.

* * *

Charley nearly jumped out of her skin as the deep, rich sounds of a cello suddenly resounded throughout the ballroom. She had been so focused on the Doctor that she had almost forgotten where they were entirely.

The Doctor paused, bringing Charley to a halt with him. His eyebrows furrowed and he cocked his head to the side. “A Lennox piece; after your time,” he added with a glance at Charley.

She looked over her shoulder and saw that the cello she had noticed earlier was gone. “Where is it coming from?”

“There’s an amplifier over there. The musician must be in another room.”

As they lapsed into a brief silence, Charley noted the slow cadence of the song. It was utterly beautiful with a melody unlike anything she had ever heard. Almost unconsciously, she found herself stepping closer to the Doctor. His arm slipped further around her waist. Without saying a word, their feet began moving again, but differently this time. Charley wasn’t familiar with any type of dance that went with the song, but the Doctor certainly did. The footwork was slow and measured, allowing her to follow with ease.

“Good,” the Doctor said quietly. “You’re doing very well. I think this is a Umbangan Rumba, created in the 2400s.”

“You _think?”_

“I’ve done a lot of dancing in my time; after a while you know how to move your feet to the rhythm whether it’s actually the right movements or not.”

Charley chuckled, finding herself absently stroking the soft sleeve of his jacket. “I don’t think it’s the dance that matters. It’s who you’re dancing with.”

A slow smile crept across the Doctor’s face as he touched his forehead to hers. “You know, Charley, I think you’re right.”


End file.
